The Invisible Man

Something that's been making me think lately. I am getting married next August (to the most wonderful woman in the world) and we have been visiting "vendors" lately as part of the wedding planning ritual. So far, we have been to see the church, the reception hall, the florist, the photographer, and the DJ - all the major stuff. In every case, with the exception of the church, the vendors barely even acknowledged my presence. They introduce themselves to my fiancee, they ask for all of her contact information, everything is filed under her name, they ask her all the questions - I don't even know if they looked at me. When I call to follow up with things (mainly to pay deposits) I have to give them her name cause they don't even know I exist.

With the church, they only know who I am because they wanted to run a background check on me to make sure I haven't been married before. Ever wonder if you could join the FBI? Try getting married in the Catholic church. If you make it there, you know you could survive a vetting by the federal government.

Now, I'm not really pissed off about this "phenomenon". I am not losing sleep over it. But does this mean that the majority of men getting married are completely uninvolved, oblivious, absent, during this process? and so these vendors figure they'll skip the bull and just work where it counts? Now I can understand me not being involved with the bride's dress, or what color the bridesmaids wear, or what types of flowers the women carry, etc. But the church where I make a life-long commitment, or the reception hall where I spend the majority of my wedding day eating, drinking, dancing and having fun? You think I don't care how any of that turns out? Do most other guys not care? And at the very least, don't common sense and basic rules of human interaction tell you to at least acknowledge me when I'm standing there? The wedding doesn't happen without me - you could at least ask me my first name.